NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — A New York City subway train derailed Thursday after colliding with another train at low speed, leaving more than 20 people with minor injuries.

The accident caused major service disruptions across Manhattan during the afternoon rush hour, authorities said. MTA said service on the 1/2/3 trains would remain “partially disrupted” into the Friday morning rush hour.

 

At about 3 p.m. Thursday on the Upper West Side, a 1 train carrying about 300 passengers and an out-of-service Metropolitan Transportation Authority train with four workers on board hit each other near the 96th Street station, police and transit officials said at the scene.

Officials said there were no immediate signs of equipment failure and investigators were seeing if human error was involved.

The out-of-service train had been stuck because someone pulled a number of emergency stop cords and the workers were on board to reset the brake cords, said Richard Davey, president of New York City transit for the MTA.

“Thankfully there were no serious injuries,” Davey said at a news conference. “Obviously two trains should not be bumping into one another. We are going to get to the bottom of that.”

Firefighters helped remove passengers from the in-service train as well as a few hundred more people from another train that was not involved but had to stop in the tunnel because of the collision.

The NYPD said seven passengers and one crew member were taken to hospitals. At least 20 emergency vehicles were on the scene, including police, fire and MTA responders.

The aging New York City subway system has struggled in recent years with power outages, signal problems and other breakdowns.

Follow us on Facebook and X platform to get our headlines in your social feeds.

Copyright 2024 NEWSnet and The Associated Press. All rights reserved.